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Fadi Zaghmout

What is harsher? reality or imagination?

Back to the infinity bug and being in a philosophical mood. Realizing that everything can have two sides: being infinite and finite at the same time. Knowing that I can address the infinit aspect of my own imagination. I decided to share it with you. I am sure that some of it may have crossed your mind before. Maybe you can share your own imagination about the world and infinity with us as well.

Building worlds inside our heads make me wonder. What if our whole universe in just a thought in someone other one’s head else head? What if that one is in a coma in a hospital where our whole world would vanish the minute he wakes up?

Playing video games, and seeing characters’ births and deaths make me wonder. What if our world is a game that started with pushing a button in a consol and would end when the person playing it get bored and switch it off.

What if our world is a video tape? Everything is connected sequentially. I believe that there are no real choices in life. What is going to happen is going to happen no matter how many times you forward or rewind that video tape. Maybe our souls are just audiance that are allowed to watch a tiny part of this video tape that forms our lives.

What if everything around me is fake? Me being in a reality simulation test where each one of the people I know is just a constructed character to serve the purpose of that test. After all, we are feel that our lives revolve around us. If I close my input device, I end up with myself, and my world of imagination that most probably differ from what is really going around me.

What if I am the one dreaming? What if I suddenly wake up and realize that I am still a little kid? or I am an old man remembering his life story? or living another one’s life in my own imagination.

What if the world is exactly what it seems to be? A meaningless matter without a real soul. An evolution prcess sparkling an intelligent machine that would vanish the time it worn out, and let me die like I have never existed.

What is harsher? reality or imagination? Does faith spare us from this pain?

I will leave you to think, and decide…

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Responses

  1. KJ Avatar
    KJ

    Hey man. Playing too many RPGs may result in such thinking. LoL.Your analysis of the possible worlds we live in is interesting and they all actually share the same psychological basis (sorry I am a psychology freak). The basis is that, in all of what you have mentioned, if you manage to convince yourself of a reality, you live it. Allow me to explain.When you watch a horror movie, your mind shifts state from the (let’s assume) real world to the world projected on the screen. Your mind becomes, to a large extent, completely oblivious to the surrouding and it immerses all your mental power and being into the movie. It is so powerful, in fact, that any stimulus received from the “real” world would be interpreted in the movie’s sense of the world. Ya3ni, if your mom turn the water faucet in the toilet while you are watching The Ring, you’d probably die there and then.The psychology of the brain is that it creates bubbles and places your existence in them. While you are dreaming, and being observed, you may sweat, feel breathless, and even fall – all because your mind assumes that your physical body is where your mind says it is. This concept is fundamental in schizophrenic people.Now trying to tie that with philosophy, I have actually written quite a lengthy paper on the metaphysical, intelligence (artifical or otherwise), being and origin (all inspired by the popular Matrix). I don’t want to rant, but what you said – that we are probably just part of someone else’s dream – may be very plausible if you think about it. Just like you dream of people you never met or some odd entities, you may be part of a dream. And, like the people in your dreams, you have free will and do whatever you want to do in that dream. No one can stop you.It gets scary however, if the person who is dreaming you is having a lucid dream (lucid means the dreamer is able to control the dream). From this notion comes the idea of not having a free will. Transiently, dreams overlap (depending on your definition of a dream of course and your concept of the soul) – and people with free will can exist in the same place where people have no free will because two dreams have intersected at some point.This can go on infinitely. And now that I had to answer a phone call, I lost my train of thoughts. LoL.Well, from what I have read you probably want to touch on the “destiny” topic as well. If you’re interested let’s stir the discussion to that direction!

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  2. Yazan Ashqar Avatar
    Yazan Ashqar

    Imagination is harsher when you try to imagine the truth of reality.

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  3. The Observer Avatar
    The Observer

    Kj, I love psychology as well. Actually you give me something to think about. Someone’s dream intersect with sonmeone’s else real life! Yes, I would like to discuss destiny. I so much believe that we are destined. It is actually what physics say if are purely build out of matter. Every reaction has a reaction, and so every thing is connected and will go according to what it meant to be since the very first moment of this world (if there is any!)Yazan ashqar, you may be right indeed!

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  4. Tala Avatar
    Tala

    Hey Fadi, really nice post, i totally agree with Yazan, imagination is harsher <>if you manage to convince yourself that its real<> and start believing it, it depends on how much weight you give it. the problem is reality makes you reject possibilities to make what goes in your mind a delusion, partially it is, but to what extent? if we say that a human is mass and energy, and the mass is reality, your mind and your mind power is energy, consciousness is energy.. how could you quantify that to be as real as the mass in the eyes of others to identify? lets say that mass is what is human sensible,, that any two could agree to its existence. could you quantify this energy in a way other than the reflexes of your body and your feelings?? i have no answer.

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  5. Wanam Avatar
    Wanam

    I think the imagination is harsher, do u know, sometimes it is harsh to think

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  6. Devil&apos;s Mind Avatar
    Devil's Mind

    Really intriguing post. Those ideas are classics, I and almost everyone I conversed with into such matters have had some of these thoughts.Now some of these make sense more than others. Note that, probability CANNOT be assigned to metaphysical plausibility – This means that if two philosophical ideas are plausible, you cannot say that one of them is more likely than the other.For example, we might be dreaming of the incidents that are happening… OR we might be part of someone else’s dream…. Do you think that while you are dreaming, the people in that dream are self-conscious?! Its not easy to tell, but based on our everyday experiences I would think that it makes more sense that I am the one who is dreaming, rather than being in someone else’s dream. Same goes for the video tapes and games. I don’t think that “Mario” is aware of his existence, or that “The You” in one movie is another instance of you with an independent brain and senses.But my argument above is cyclical and have a loophole in it. The problem is that the above argument takes “everyday life” as a reference. But since we are already arguing whether or not, everyday life is representative of reality, it seems illogical to use it in support of such an argument.<>“What if the world is exactly what it seems to be?”<> – Now this is the question that I feel confident enough to deny. While I cannot be sure of “how” our conceived world is, I would say to a good degree of confidence that its NOT what it seems. I think we cannot know the world as it is, only a representation of the world around us (representational skepticism – rings a bell?).Humans are limited by their five (maybe more) senses. But all we know about our world is what we know through our senses. But there are many details about the world that we don’t know, simply because we cannot SENSE them.

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  7. Mohanned Avatar
    Mohanned

    Imagination is harsher because ultimatly you will wake up to reality

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  8. KJ Avatar
    KJ

    Hey Fadi (finally found out your name 😛 hehe). Destiny is a funny topic because it is a paradox in and of itself, even if you try to explain it.Before making an argument though let us define destiny. We have two definitions:(A) Destiny is a path that you will cross regardless of the illusion of the decision making you have.(B) Destiny is an abstract concept that connects people and events for some reason that the individuals will have to figure out for themselves. You may call it an “opportunity” or “a really really good coincidence”.Let us argue A.If destiny is a cast-stone path, then like you said, whatever we do, it doesn’t matter since our destiny dictates a specific path for us regardless of our choice. In this concept, free will is non existent, although you do have a choice, in the end it does not matter. This is the tricky point that people attack religion with… because religion says people have free will and based on their choices everyone gets their punishment and rewards. But then again religion also tells you that whatever is written for you is written. Then people say, well, if I am born, say, a Kafir, it isn’t my fault then is it? Because as much as I try, I will always be a Kafir thanks to destiny, and I will be punished regardless.Let us argue B.Destiny as a concept means that, if you are destined for something, it means that you need to take advantage for the opportunities that come up. In this case, free will is present. What is not covered by your free will, is covered by destiny. For instance, today, you choose to go to the shopping center. You have no free will to control someone else who is driving a truck and is about to swerve off and crush you. If you did, then that guy won’t have free will. It can’t happen. So, by your own free will of going to the center and by the truck driver’s free will to speed like an idiot, destiny had it that you get killed. Similarly, you may choose to go to a cafe, and, someone else may choose to go to a cafe, and, what a “coincidence”, you get to know each other, and you give your CV and you land yourself a job. Destiny worked by two free wills.

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  9. The Observer Avatar
    The Observer

    Tala, is consciousness is a form of energy? or it is matter? Isn’t energey and matter the same thing with different forms?Wanam, I guess that reality is always easier than imaginationDevil’s mind, well said, let me add and our perception of the world varies as indiviuals, we might have common perception between some of us, but if you look closer, it seems that each one of us is living really in his own world. Our worlds intersect, and we get to know about each other worlds thtought communication. It is much related to your series on linguistic and how words mean different things to different people. As for dreams it strike me how much information our brain save in order to mock up other’s behaviours and reactions that your dream would build unconsciously as exactly as you would expect from the person in the real world. Kj, I guess that I am talking about definition A. Actually it is in a very abstract way where physics dictates the rules of our universe. It is a simple Newton’s law. Each action has its own reaction. If you calculate each reaction at atomic level, you predict the future (that is if we assume there is no super-natural powr affecting those reactions) which is based on scientific provement is a safe assumption.In a higher level, it looks to us that we actually make a decision, but if you look closer you would know that your decision is based on chemistry and the result of a reaction based on having more substance of som matter than another.Ironically, destiny that religious people are talking about, can be proved without the need of existance of a higher duty. It may have been written by coincidence, or it may have been written by God. But god doesn’t interfere in the progress of events.

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  10. Hamza Avatar
    Hamza

    KJ – I have my own 3rd theory about destinytheory C – Destiny is pre-defined and written for all the different paths that you CAN choose. e.g. Decision whether to cross a red light traffic or not. the two paths are already pre-written that if you cross you will end up making an accident. And if you don’t, you will be late to your work by 2 minutes. I prefer this to theory A because here you have the free-will and choice whether to take that decision or not, and in this case, free-will mattersmaybe I was inspired by the movie “Butterfly effect”. :P. At least this is what I think

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  11. Tala Avatar
    Tala

    what i wanted to say is we can’t detect thoughts. all what you would detect is electric signals, but you can’t decode these signals, so the content of this signal is kept as an illusion because its not quantifable and is subject for debating of how existent is it and how valid the data it carries because its only meaningful for whom it belongs to decode it, same goes for consciousness, you can’t really measure it thus in the eye of a scienist to seeks an evidence won’t admit its existence and consider it a result of a coherent system.

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  12. Devil&apos;s Mind Avatar
    Devil's Mind

    Regarding the “infinity bug”, I found a recent article that is on topic: < HREF="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2007/05/infinity-aint-everything.html" REL="nofollow">http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2007/05/infinity-aint-everything.html<>

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  13. The Observer Avatar
    The Observer

    Hamza, I believe that (A) is what closer to reality in terms of destiny. I am not sure whether I would prefer to have (A), (B), or (C), but I am enjoying my own path of life and seeing it unfolds. Tala, aren’t those elecrtical pulses triggered by chemical reactions occuring in our brains based on other electrical pulses that were issued by our neuron system by some other outside effect?Devil’s mind, I read the article, it is brief, but it has a good point regardless infinity and possibilities.

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  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    my boyfriend always say he prefers to live in reality, but i ask how does he know his reality is not just his imagination? sigh…. who is to say which is harsher, its what you make of it. i prefer a little bit of both. adds a little spice to life. if we are a figment of someone elses dream, game, video tape. all i know is that i am enjoying my so called life! peace and blessings marie

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  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Hamza, i like what you said i do agree with you when it comes to that.marie

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  16. The Observer Avatar
    The Observer

    Your boyfriend lives in his own reality/imagination 🙂Peace for you as well Marie..

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